Doucet-Boudreau v. Nova Scotia (Minister of Education)
| Doucet-Boudreau v Nova Scotia (Minister of Education) | |
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| Hearing: October 4, 2002 Judgment: November 6, 2003 |
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| Full case name | Glenda Doucet‑Boudreau, Alice Boudreau, Jocelyn Bourbeau, Bernadette Cormier‑Marchand, Yolande Levert and Cyrille Leblanc, in their name and in the name of all Nova Scotia parents who are entitled to the right, under Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to have their children educated in the language of the minority, namely the French language, in publicly funded French-language school facilities, and Fédération des parents acadiens de la Nouvelle‑Écosse Inc. v. Attorney General of Nova Scotia |
| Citations | [2003] 3 S.C.R. 3, 218 N.S.R. (2d) 311, 218 N.S.R. (2e) 311, 232 D.L.R. (4th) 577, 112 C.R.R. (2d) 202 |
| Docket No. | 28807 |
| Prior history | Judgment for the Attorney General in the Court of Appeal for Nova Scotia. |
| Ruling | Appeal allowed, trial judge order restored. |
| Holding | |
| Section 24(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides responsive and effective remedies for those whose Charter rights are violated; remedies may be creative, compared to traditional judicially awarded remedies. | |
| Court Membership | |
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Chief Justice: Beverley McLachlin Puisne Justices: Charles Gonthier, Frank Iacobucci, John C. Major, Michel Bastarache, Ian Binnie, Louise Arbour, Louis LeBel, Marie Deschamps |
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| Reasons given | |
| Majority | Iacobucci and Arbour, joined by McLachlin, Gonthier and Bastarache |
| Dissent | LeBel and Deschamps, joined by Major and Binnie |
Doucet-Boudreau v Nova Scotia (Minister of Education) [2003] 3 S.C.R. 3, 2003 SCC 62, was a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada which followed the Nova Scotia Supreme Court's finding that a delay in building French language schools in Nova Scotia violated the claimants' minority language educational rights under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This finding led to an important debate regarding the scope of section 24(1) of the Charter, which provides for remedies for those whose rights are infringed, and the applicability of the common law doctrine of functus officio. While the Supreme Court of Canada split on what constitutes an appropriate usage of section 24(1), the majority favoured a section 24(1) with broad, flexible capabilities.
According to the Supreme Court of Canada, Nova Scotia's past had not been marked by a great deal of governmental action for providing education in French. After 1982, however, section 23 was added to the Constitution of Canada, thus creating a right for Francophone and Acadian Nova Scotians to schooling in their own language, provided that they were of a sufficient number. Several Francophone families in five school districts, Kingston/Greenwood, Chéticamp, Île Madame-Arichat (Petit-de-Grat), Argyle, and Clare, tried to invoke that right, requesting new buildings or programs for primary and secondary education, and the provincial government responded with affirmation that section 23 did indeed mandate that this request be fulfilled. This affirmation was, however, followed by delay, and in 1998, with no schools having been built, the minority language community turned to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia to move the government to meet its obligation.
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